


Control Issues

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur prided himself on being able to control the situation around him and save the people he cared about. What would his nightmare look like?</p><p>For the prompt <a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19177.html?thread=43817193#t43817193">Arthur's worst fear is projected in a dream: Ariadne getting captured and tortured right in front of his eyes.</a> For the "archaic medical treatment" box on my hc_bingo card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control Issues

It was a practice session, and Arthur had gotten sloppy. It was the only thing that made sense to him. Ariadne had built the perfect maze for this particular subject, a collector of archaic medical tools. Arthur would keep vigilant for militant projections, their extractor would pretend to have a priceless collection for sale in exchange for an exorbitant amount of money. The subject would have to write a check that would have his account information on it, and it would likely be the secret account his wife suspected he was hiding from her.

It was just a practice session to learn the maze. He had to memorize every blasted detail, even down to the lancets and jars of leeches, the laxatives for purging patients labeled in copperplate hand and the various tools and plasters used for blistering patients. Their extractor had joked about the Victorian era being full of sadistic bastards, leading Ariadne to start discussing ethics, medical treatment and advances as well as the limits of medical research. Arthur hadn't been paying full attention to the conversation, but _something_ must have seeped through into his subconscious.

Arthur was separated from Ariadne and the extractor, and suddenly he blanked.

He couldn't remember what the scale model of the layout had looked like. He couldn't remember the sketches he had seen, the endless discussions he had with Ariadne after hours when they were supposed to be talking about work and wound up talking about a dozen different things at once. He knew everything about Ariadne and she knew more about him than anyone he had ever worked with but Dominic Cobb.

He was in an old, dilapidated hospital that had plaster crumbling and exposing the wood beams beneath it. He could hear distant screaming from the wing labeled "Surgery;" he dimly remembered that most Victorian surgeries had been amputations without anesthesia or antiseptics. The death rate would have been fantastically high. Most of medical treatment at the time was toxic, though the belief at the time was to try to expel "poisons" from the body however they could, and that the body could only hold one illness at a time. He didn't remember where he had picked up on that, though it might have been while researching the subject's interest in the era.

He didn't have his Glock. His suit didn't even match the one he had been wearing when he walked into the dream hospital, but looked more in keeping with the period. He was wearing a white lab coat over the suit, his pockets laden with lancets and bottles with questionable contents.

Suddenly the scream in the distance was all too familiar, and Arthur broke out into a run.

Ariadne was in a hospital gown that seemed to be more modern, and she was strapped down to a metal chair. The restraints were wide leather strips with steel buckles, and her head was also strapped down into place. A man standing next to her dressed similarly to Arthur looked up. His eyes were empty in their sockets, and he held a white hot poker while the assistant held a bottle of acid. "Doctor," the Victorian doctor said as soon as he faced Arthur. This had to be a projection, though Arthur couldn't breathe at the sight of the poker. There were already welts covering Ariadne's arms that were beginning to blister. "We've already administered a round of purgatives as per your notes. The acid and plasters are next once we break open the blisters."

Weeping, Ariadne faced Arthur with a plaintive expression. "How could you let them do this to me? How could you let this happen? You said you'd protect me..."

"Hush, child. This is what's best," the Victorian doctor said. His voice was harsh, not soothing at all, treating Ariadne as if she was a recalcitrant toddler. When Arthur rushed forward to try to undo the buckles, he found himself restrained by two other doctors that mysteriously appeared. "There, now. Let's begin your treatment."

Ariadne began to scream as the poker landed on the blisters and welts, breaking them open. Arthur could smell burning flesh, and he found himself screaming as well once the assistant poured acid over the burns. She stared straight at him as she screamed, pulling and tugging at the leather restraints. They didn't budge, and she couldn't twist out of the way. All she could do was scream, and it was Arthur's worst nightmare come true.

The world dissolved when the timer ran down, and Arthur ripped his lines out and rushed to Ariadne's side. She was confused as he gathered her up into his arms, sobbing into the curve of her neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It'll never happen again, I promise you I won't let it."

Their extractor let out a breath. "O-kay. Whatever happened can't have been good. Where were you, Arthur? We spent most of the time trying to find you."

Arthur couldn't get the words out, couldn't explain how he had been helpless to stop Ariadne's pain, unable to make the projections stop torturing her. _I failed you,_ he thought, even if he had never said the words aloud to her before. Dinners and the occasional movie nights at each others' apartments didn't quite equal declarations of protection and safety, but Arthur couldn't shake the feeling.

It was his fault, and he had failed her.

***

Ariadne pushed the mug full of tea into Arthur's hands. He had been completely shaken up by whatever had happened in the practice session the day before. As much as he had tried to cover it up, there was no disguising that fact. Though Ariadne offered to stay with him that night, Arthur had refused. She didn't suggest going under for another practice session, since he seemed jumpy if she even left his sight. Today she had tried on three occasions to go under to teach him the maze, and he was coming up with excuses why she shouldn't do it. This wasn't like him, and their extractor had left for the day in an exasperated huff.

"Whatever it was, it involved me," Ariadne said without preamble. Arthur didn't reply, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes or kick him in the shin to get him to say _something_ or look at her. "You need to tell me what happened."

Arthur looked up then, hollows under his eyes looking even more pronounced than before. "I failed you, Ariadne. I'm sorry. I promise you it won't ever happen again."

"Arthur," she began patiently. "You disappeared when we went through the maze. We went looking for you, but we never found out where you went. What happened to you?"

"I... I was in the hospital, and you were there. They'd captured you and were torturing you, using all those fucked up tools..." His voice trailed off at her owlish expression. He couldn't remember now who the subject of that dream would have been. "I _saw_ what they did to you," he said, voice breaking. "I couldn't stop them..."

Leaning forward, Ariadne ran her hand over Arthur's shoulder. "I was safe the whole time, I promise you. There was nothing you did or didn't do that left me in danger yesterday."

"I wasn't good enough," he insisted. For some reason he kept sticking to that point. He was supposed to be the best. He was supposed to be the point man. It was his job to keep everyone safe, to keep the projections from interfering. All he could see in the back of his mind was Ariadne screaming, the burns blistering and being popped open.

Ariadne cradled his face in her hands. "It was a dream, Arthur. I'm here. I'm right here, and I'm fine. It didn't really happen."

"I keep seeing it," Arthur said, feeling like a stubborn child. Didn't she understand why it was horrible? If it happened during a practice run, what could happen during the real thing?

"That's what you fear the most, isn't it?" At his silence, Ariadne sighed and tilted her own head so that their foreheads touched. Her hands on his face seemed to bring him comfort, so she continued that. "The hospital is the vault, Arthur. Maybe that's why we couldn't find you. It's where the secrets are buried, where the deepest secrets are going to be locked away until we go digging for them."

Arthur froze, knowing every word she was saying was true. He hadn't felt like himself in that hospital, not really, and he had carried the feeling out of the dream with him.

"You _are_ good enough. I don't think the level would've hit you as hard if you weren't amazing at what you did," Ariadne continued. She moved her jaw to press her lips against his forehead. "And I know outside of the job, you'd be just as careful with me."

Some of the tension seemed to bleed out of him as her arms circled his shoulders. He was still beating himself up over not fighting the projections harder, over not doing enough; even if it was a trap she had built into the level, he was the best at what he did. He should have been able to see a way out of that.

Ariadne pressed her lips against his temple. "Stop thinking." She moved to kiss his other temple. "I can practically hear you thinking, all those gears grinding with the 'I told you so' and 'I should've done this instead.'"

Arthur pulled back to shoot her a wry look. "It's how I stay the best."

Putting aside the mug of tea, she maneuvered herself into his lap. His arms tightened around her, and she settled comfortably into his embrace. "I care about you, too, you know," she murmured, tucking her head against his shoulder. "I'd be scared if I saw you getting tortured and I'd try to do whatever I could make it stop. But I also know that it's a dream, and you'd still come home to me. You have to hang onto that, Arthur. I'm all right. I'm here with you. _This_ is real, and you're more than good enough."

Letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Arthur simply held her for a while. "Seeing that yesterday scared me more than the thought of Cobb going to prison, you know. And I fought so hard to prevent that from happening."

"I guess this means I mean more to you than Cobb," Ariadne said, keeping her tone lighthearted.

He had never admitted his feelings before, had never said the words. "I love you," he admitted, stroking her hair. "More than you realize."

Ariadne pulled back slightly so she could look at him. He was being sincere, though there was a troubled cast to his eyes. There was still doubt there, still concern that he wasn't good enough to keep her safe. "I love you, too, Arthur," she murmured. "That's why I trust you. That's why I know things will go well."

When their mouths met, Arthur let go of his fears. Ariadne was real in his arms, and she wasn't leaving anytime soon.

It had been a practice session. That meant he could learn from it, prevent it from ever happening. There was too much to lose otherwise, and he could never allow that.

The End


End file.
